There's an old adage for a good life : 'Don't live to eat, eat to live!'When presenting people with this question, the answer I often get is, "well, who isn't?"

A fair question. Are we born already addicted to food? If not, when do we become addicted? Are anorexic people addicted to food? And when we feel sick and can't even think of eating, are we still food addicts then? These are extreme examples that obviously don't all represent healthy behavior, and it becomes even more complicated when we try to define what being "addicted" to food really means. After all, everyone needs to eat in order to live, right? We also need to breathe in order to stay alive, but I've never met anyone who could be said to be addicted to Oxygen. Nobody goes around over-breathing, but overeating is commonplace.

Addiction is known to be a chemical or emotional dependency on something, and the reality is that people approach food in two different ways: the addicted and the non addicted.

Helping people with nutrition, I generally get two types of clients. First, there are the ones who want to optimize their diet in order to create a better balance for themselves, both mentally and physically. And then there are the ones who face some sort of a degenerative disease, and are having to face the prospect that there is a big change waiting for them in the near future--either one that they make voluntarily, or one that will be happening to them.

People in the first group usually show less attachment to food. They realize that they are in charge of their diet and have enough self control to change what they are doing. They see that the changes they are seeking are worth more to them than the immediate satisfaction that certain foods can provide. Often they categorize satisfaction from food as a lower grade pleasure, compared with what life has to offer in other fields of satisfaction.

Within the second group, attachment to food is much stronger. Usually this attachment has to do with carbohydrate rich foods (carbs), and by the time they are affected by a degenerative process strong enough to catch their attention, it feels too late for them to change. By that point, most are addicted to their food, and would rather allow disease to take them than give up their specific eating habits.

Let's look a bit deeper at the processes underlying regular high-carb diets.Eating a carb rich food creates a strong insulin response, setting in motion a cycle that sends blood sugar levels up and down, makes a mess out of other hormone levels, and interestingly enough, also wreaks havoc on the neurotransmitters in the brain--specifically Dopamine and Norepinephrin. Do these sound familiar? They are the components in the brain in charge of reward behavior, specifically self-reward ( like the cake you get as a reward for doing something difficult, or celebration, etc.). It turns out that these are the same neurotransmitters involved in addiction to cocaine, caffeine and behaviors like gambling. And as it turns out, freeing oneself from carb addiction is much harder than getting sober from most street drugs!

When faced with the prospect of making a change, people start to sound like true addicts. They say that they don't really eat carbs all that much, come up with reasons why it's healthy and good for them, or make excuses. For that reason, working with the second group can be very frustrating, and results are scarce. As a general rule they will probably need a therapist alongside their nutritionist to help them kick their carb habit.

At this point you might be wondering which group you belong to, or people that you know.

People who are addicted to their food will often show specific signs of high carb consumption. Inflammation can show up as arthritis, eczema, acid reflux, or bad skin (which occasionally can be attributed to other factors as well). Skin tags are a sign of chronically elevated blood sugar. Lack of muscle definition is also a hallmark of a high carb diet, which creates inflamed tissue that pads the body with pro inflammatory fats; this fat layer is directly linked to degenerative processes and loss of insulin sensitivity, which intensifies through a snowball effect.

That all makes the original question that much more important to consider.Are you addicted to food? Let's put it this way: are you in charge of what goes in your mouth?If you are, big pat on the back, that's a good place to come from. you are one of the few who can assert real control over your health. If you find that you are addicted, you are certainly not alone--and step one is admitting it to yourself. ​There's an old adage for a good life : 'Don't live to eat, eat to live!'

Many of us try hard to eat healthy, only to mess it all up with the spices we use. We tend to think spices are healthy, and in any case, what adverse effects could a little bit of powdery stuff have on our health?

The problem starts when we use spices that contain many ingredients as opposed to spices and herbs of one or two ingredients. When you use real spices (herbs), you are benefiting your health since those spices containing a solo ingredient do have beneficial properties. However when you need a heavy duty spice that has more ingredients then your shopping list, it probably means that:​1.Your food was low grade if it needed that much seasoning.2.Your taste buds aren't functioning due to the numbing effect of sugars, MSG, and not eating enough real foods.3.You are loading your body with MSG, which is being used under 50 different names and might even say no MSG added, making it appear to taste so good...but that is the point. Some of the code names sound so innocent such as 'Yeast extract' to seem more welcoming. Another aggressor you could find in the heavy duty spices is Trans fatty acids, also used under multiple names, and known to cause cancer and other bad health conditions.

So there you have it. Use single spices and herbs and know that you are on the right track for bettering your existential experience or grab the heavy duty “yummy” spices and fool yourself to think you’re making a healthy choice and that the little powder can’t be all that bad for you.

In plain speaking, nutrients are substances that makes our bodies grow, they are building blocks that our body can work with and build new tissue with, as well as repair damaged tissue.

There are different compounds in that category, things like Proteins, fats, vitamins, Minerals, water, carbs. They are all needed in different amounts. Generally speaking people that eat food that is dense with nutrients would be healthier and more robust than people who deprive themselves from nutrients.

Generally speaking nutritionally dense foods are usually foods that grow in good soils, or clean waters. Foods that grow naturally without human interference are usually more nutritionally dense then the ones grown by men. And of course natural fresh food are much more nourishing then processes food to all its sorts.

A famous research conducted by Dr. A. Price proved that lack of nutrients in food will cause developmental issues in human beings, he compared people on western diets to people that lived in the wild all across the globe, and he had found that the people on western diets had thinner bones, bad teeth, narrow skulls and what he referred to as a facial injury, narrow gums which makes it so that wisdom teeth has to be pulled ( he had found that in all of our wild couterparts there was enough room for all the wisdon teeth to stay and function correctly ). He describes a narrowing of the nasal breathing cavity in what he had described as "mouth breathers".

Dr. A. Price had found that all of these phenomena and others did not exist in people that lived in the wild, true to their nature.

That brings us to looking at the importance of nutrients, and the consequences of consuming foods that are poor in them. By watering down our food from nutrients, eating a nourishing meal once in every few meals, we are watering down our livelihood, health and well being. Our palate gets used to eating sugary food and other food with powerful taste, that we lose our sensitivity to sense and enjoy foods that have these nutritious substances. We might think we are healthy enough according to the poor western lifestyle standards, so that we can allow ourselves to indulge, but at the end of the day we are promoting inflammation in our bodies, and we are degenerating, causing all sorts of disease, some we might wonder why we suffer from when we are young, problems like constipation, poor digestion, skin disorders, and others takes longer to develop like various autoimmune and a host of degenerative disease.

Buying, growing and seeking quality food is a necessity if we wish to create better health individually, and also as a society, healthier people make better life choices, and have a higher probability to living a more satisfying life. Healthy people are more energetic, they tend to be more optimistic, feeling that more good options are open for them. Extra positive energy is more likely to be used to help others and society and improve the quality of life for all.

We have so many problems on this planet, but it does seem to sustain a big number of us so far. Educating more people on this subject could lead to a much more efficient life for us all, and it could relive all sorts of suffering we now are going through.

Majority of people now days seem to follow various sets of rules regarding their eating habits:- drink lots of water.- no red meat!- eat every 3 hours.- don't eat more then x amount of calories a day.- don't eat past 7pm.- and the various diets: vegan, vegetarian, paleo, Atkins, San Diego diet, pescetarian, low fat, food pyramid etc..

Most people going to a nutritionist, to work on their nutrition, would expect a complete Manuel on how to eat every single moment of the day, so that they don't have to think about it.

This attitude make it so that we grow disconnected from our body. Our body can be more accurate and sensitive then any machine. How could a Manuel book apply to our bodies the way it does for machines.Comparing it to a machine, it would be similar to driving a car, when the gauges on the dashboard turn on for low oil, and engine is heating, saying I was told to only put gas in every 100 miles so I should be fine.

Our body has all sorts of sensors, and quite many of them. It knows it's condition in every given moment. Our body communicates with us using its own language, which seem we try to ignore; pain, hunger, thirst, tiredness, lust.. Well maybe we don't ignore lust, and maybe not the other ones, but point is we do seem to avoid paying attention to these feeling, thinking what they mean, or planning our day with attentiveness to them.

Now some people are physically less sensitive to their body then other, it has a name, it's called 'insulin resistance', it usually appears as a significant amount of belly fat, and it means that a person will need more insulin in his blood to clear sugar out of it, then a person more sensitive to insulin.What's the problem? High Insulin put us in a less then favorable condition, and it also mean that our other inner communication systems are lagging. It isn't a fixed condition BTW, it can get better or worst.

This is basically the physical appearance to lack of connection to the body as a result of consumption.

So pay attention to what your body is trying to tell you, increase the sensitivity. Everyone have different consumption needs, and our ability to digest different sorts of food will also change throughout our life for better or for worst.

I like the idea of eating in moderation, however from conversation with people, most of the time when I hear this argument, it is by proponents who hide behind it as a reason to not learn or understand nutrition.For moderation in eating to work for your individual needs and get you your maximum health benefits possible from your diet, there is a lot for you to know about nutrition as well as knowing your body (and while most people will tell you they know their bodies, they are far from being in their optimal health condition).The first workable data about Moderation, is that it needs to refer to food, in other word, if you ingest thing that are not food, moderation with it will not propel you to better health. A clear example could be wood, while it has calories and some life forms can digest it, consuming it will not produce any benefit for us, and probably even hinder our progress into a healthier state.Now while this one is quite obvious, some other biologic matter has fallen to a grey area, since some substances are very commonly consumes by our species nowadays, for instance;Trans fatty acids- while we all know it is not good for us, most of us don’t know that it is actually never been food, it originally was an industrial by product, a fatty acid that does not exist in nature, and is causing lots of havoc in our systems, no moderation can be of help here either.While most of us would swear they don’t consume it we don’t realize that money making industries were smarter than us by not calling them tarns fat on labels, instead they could be recognized as hydrogenised vegetable oils to their sorts.One of the things that from early times got our species to be successful is the fact that we are highly adaptable, and proof to that exists in the variety of diets we were able to adapt to in various parts of the planet.Having said that, among other things that should not be consumed in moderation are alcohols, and grain foods. To each his own problems, but just to show for the latter, it was mistaken for food many ages ago; while only recently science is starting to realize all the problems it had created.Here is an article that shed light on some of the related problems:http://www.celiac.com/articles/759/1/Early-Diagnosis-of-Gluten-Sensitivity-Before-the-Villi-are-Gone-by-By-Kenneth-Fine-MD/Page1.html

In order to fully understand the full meaning of eating in moderation, one need to understand that havoc creating substances in the food is NOT included in moderation, damaging the cells and tissues of your body with things you consume cannot be called moderation!

Eating in moderation has to do first with eating real food, and when it comes to that it is pretty much consist of various meats and eggs, produce (not including grains and legumes), tubers, and nuts.The Word moderation imply ratio between these ingredients, and that is a very individual thing, it would vary with age, physical activity as well as changing existing plateaus in health and body composition, it would also vary for different ethnicities.

For one thing we need to realize that we had developed for millions of years to be a meat eating species, one of our closest relatives, the Neanderthals, were proven by bone tests to be a complete meat eating species, even though there were lots of veggies and fruits in their proximities, they did not touch those, and that does say lots about us.However, we have adapted to various diets across the globe, some of complete carnivores, others less so.The bottom line is, there are many ways to manipulate food intake for bettering physical conditions, and there is a lot to know.While it is a very exciting journey to get to know your body, it does help shortening the way by working with individuals that know the bigger picture, as there is a lot of confusion in this field, even among people that claim to work in it.